when sturgill had to cut his ‘sound and fury’ tour short due to the pandemic, he retreated back to his home and ruminated on his next step. he did a fundraiser for musicians in june to an empty ryman auditorium with a bluegrass band, and made a promise to his fans that if they raised enough money, he would record a new album. well, he kept his promise, and the setting in retrospect was omniscient.

because nearly everyone stopped touring, he was able to gather up some of the best bluegrass minds around, and get them all in a studio to revisit 20 songs from his catalog. you could be suspicious and think that this was going to be a throw away ‘picking with sturgill’, but you would be wrong. you see, sturgill got started in the music business as a bluegrass artist, and only turned to country and americana formats later in his career. in a recent interview i heard he did with elizabeth cook, he said that after going through these sessions, he realized that many of these songs were at their heart bluegrass in nature, but were molded to fit the genre he was working in at the time. i knew most of these songs already, but they sound so natural in these new settings that he may be completely right.

let us first start off with the musicians he worked with. maybe first and foremost is the incredibly talented sierra hull, who kills it on mandolin here, and also does some great backing vocals. tim o’brien and mark howard are on guitars trading rhythm and leads, scott vestal is on banjo, and stuart duncan is on bass. his longtime bandmate miles miller is on the drums. it was recorded at butcher shoppe studios, unfortunately the last session ever done there.

the band and sturgill sound like they have been playing together forever. sturgill’s vocal stylings are not what you would consider to be in the bluegrass tradition, but it works so well here. on top of that, his often metaphysical lyrics sound better and more profound in this setting. it really just gels and sounds like it should have always been this way.

if you like sturgill or you like bluegrass, either way you will want to add this to your collection. i just found out that he released volume two this weekend, and i have heard a handful of cuts off of that. you might as well get both.

because he got his start in nashville, both with the band steeldrivers and writing hit songs for other country artists, it was probably natural that when he hit it big with his 2015 ‘travellers’ album, he was cast in the country genre. but that album, and his next two, showed that he was comfortable adding other influences to his songs.

when i added the cd to my itunes library, it tagged it as ‘country & western’. it is not. this is a multi genre album that skillfully mixes r&b, rockabilly, americana and soul, just to name a few. chris is at the top of his game here, and i think this is his best album yet. it opens with ‘starting over’, and ends with ‘nashville, tn’ – the latter a farewell to the city that got him started. he is clearly trying to make music of his own interests, while also making it hard to categorize his work. as i have mentioned before, i tend to be attracted to artists that defy description.

he coproduced it with dave cobb, and every track is well constructed and artfully played. he wrote or cowrote 11 of the 14 tracks. his three covers are an obscure john fogerty song, and two from guy clark (interestingly placed back to back near the end of the album). the lineup is considerably strengthened by adding in some outstanding work by the two ex petty hands, mike campbell and benmont tench. as always, his wife morgane adds great backup vocals.

listen to mike campbell’s guitar on this rocker:

but this is probably my favorite song. if you have ever had a dog that held a special place in your family, and then watched it succumb to old age, you will have a hard time keeping your emotions in check on this track. one of the great dog songs ever.

this post is dedicated to kobe, our friends’ dog who embodied everything about this song. ‘i can tell you right now, that a dog has a soul’. yes it does.

r.i.p., kobe.

the allman betts band has backed up their wonderful 2019 debut album (‘down to the river’) with an equally impressive sophomore offering, ‘bless your heart’. as a reminder, the lead members of the band are devon allman (gregg’s son), duane betts (dickie’s son), and berry duane oakley (berry oakley’s son). All are reluctant to categorize themselves as an ‘allman brothers’ sons’ band, but for various reasons they have drifted together and created something that advances the legendary band’s legacy while also allowing them to forge towards new directions and sounds. recorded at muscle shoals studios in alabama, under the watchful eye of engineer/producer matt ross-spang (isbell, margo price, john prine), the 13 songs clocking in at 72 minutes feature a wide variety of styles and arrangements – acoustic, blues, soul, and straight up rock and roll. their fathers’ musical heritage is in their genes, and you can hear it infused in much of the music, but you will also hear other influences like black crowes, ryan adams, grateful dead, and many others.

that being said, the centerpiece of the entire album might be the 12 minute instrumental ‘savannah dream’, penned by betts. i have seen it compared to one of his father’s masterpieces, ‘in memory of elizabeth reed’, which is both fair and unfair. fair in that it is a gorgeous and expansive composition that has unique melodies and layers, with room for improvisation from all of them and also gets downright nasty in the guitar solo sequences. unfair in that he will always be compared to the career of his father. at least for now.

even though the three descendants had known each other nearly all their lives and played together occasionally, this version of the band had barely played much together before recording their first album. they took that out on the road last year and began to gel as a unit. by the time I saw them in early february of this year, they were a well honed machine, putting on one of the best shows i have seen in a while. with a three guitar attack of allman, betts, and slide player johnny stachela, they not only have distinct styles but serious chemistry.

i am looking forward to seeing them on the road again soon.

the last act that john prine signed to his ‘oh boy’ record label before he died was a fellow by the name of arlo mckinley. arlo, a native of cincinnati, is a veteran of the kentucky/ohio/west virginia music scene, much like a few of the recent success stories like tyler childers, sturgill simpson, and a fellow i wrote about recently – ian noe.

he released his first album in 2014, and has been working on his second one here for a few years. recorded in the legendary sam phillips studio in memphis, produced by matt-ross spang (prine, isbell, margo price, etc.), and surrounded by some of nashville’s best studio musicians, arlo delivers one of my favorite albums of the year so far.

he comfortably distills country and folk to use as his palette to reflect on good times and bad times, broken relationships, and tales of addiction in the underbelly of the midwest.

when prine saw him for the first time during a showcase event at a small venue in nashville, he performed ‘bag of pills’, a song that had been in his repertoire for a few years. this song, as well as a few others on this collection, remind me of isbell’s work on the same topic. one of my favorites is a little honky tonk nugget called ‘she’s always around’, and it took me a couple times through it to realize that ‘she’ was not actually a woman, but rather a narcotic that was always there when he was vulnerable (much like neil young’s ‘old laughing lady’ wasn’t a woman either).

the whole album just has a natural feel to it, as if you had known some of these songs all your life. he has a distinctive voice, the songs are expertly crafted, and the production is supportive and impeccable.

if you are a fan of any of the artists i have mentioned above, then i am going to ask you to trust me on this one and just buy it. this is a really tough time to make your national debut, and i think this guy deserves a shot.

i was having a cocktail with a friend of mine the other day and the subject of non satellite commercial radio came up and the lack of good quality music there these days. my comment in reply to her was something like, ‘that is not measure of whether there is actually great music out there, but rather the nature of the radio business these days’. my contention is that things have never been better in regards to musical choices. you just have to seek it out. along those lines, here are 6 albums i picked up in the last few weeks.

lilly hiatt – ‘walking proof’

source – outlaw country sirius xm

one of my favorite songwriters of all time is john hiatt. here we have a great album by one of his daughters, lilly. this has actually been out for a while now, and i knew it was out there, but i can’t give you a good explanation of why i delayed. if you consider taking a flyer on any of these selections today, i would ask you to strongly consider this one. it would be unfair to compare her songwriting to her father, but i think she holds her own. i am sure if you were to ask him he would be damn proud. and she has a great voice.

 

pretenders – ‘hate for sale’

source – american songwriter magazine

this ageless band has put together a great new addition to their collection. chrissie has never written or sounded better, and martin chambers still brings it on drums. i first saw her when she returned to her hometown at blossom music center in cuyahoga falls in 1981 right before i went off to college. loved her then, still do.

 

margo price – ‘that’s how rumors get started’

source – pitchfork magazine

i was an early adopter on margo, and i posted on her first album before she became well known. i wasn’t nearly as enamored of her second album, as i think her success and political posturing got to her head. on this one she steers away somewhat from her nashville roots and gets a little seventies rock on us. sturgill simpson produces, and the songs are well done and varied in styles. i have seen a number of reviews give comparisons to latter era fleetwood mac and stevie nicks, and there is some merit to that. however, i think margo is a better singer. she easily tackles all the material here vocally

 

gillian welch and dave rawlings – ‘all the good times’

source – reader dave c. from jersey

somewhat of a quarantine session, gillian and dave set up an old reel to reel in their house and laid down ten cover tracks of some of their favorite songs by artists such as prine, dylan, norman blake and a few others. the version of prine’s ‘hello in there’ might be the best i have ever heard. here we have elizabeth cotton’s classic ‘oh babe it ain’t no lie’.

jerry garcia and john kahn – ‘garcialive, volume 14’

source – jerrygarcia.com

tomorrow marks the 25th anniversary of jerry’s untimely passing. i am sure i will get in a retrospective mood sometime soon this weekend, and this may be part of my soundtrack. here jerry and his longtime garcia band bassist john kahn present a short acoustic set in a small venue in the heart of new york city. the crowd is part of the show here, up in the mix and egging these guys on. billy strings does the liner notes and goes into great length on how he first got turned on to jerry by listening to his bluegrass work with david grisman, and then gives great descriptions of the twelve songs presented here. i really miss jerry. the world would be a better place if he were still around.

the texas gentleman – ‘floor it!!!’

source – american songwriter magazine

as they used to say in monty python, ‘and now for something completely different’. a bunch of texas studio musicians who have also been part of backup bands for country artists like kris kristofferson and george strait, among many others, these guys just put out their second studio album, and it is highly interesting. if that description gives you a notion of what kind of music they would bring, you would likely be totally wrong. often when i have trouble explaining or categorizing an artist’s sound, i usually find it to be worth the time. and that has never been more true than with this hour long tribute to the pop and rock bands of the seventies. you will here glimpses of little feat, steely dan, the meters, solo mccartney,  randy newman, leon russell and so on. not for everyone, but if that sounds interesting to you, give it a spin.

 

as i have been saying for months now, it has never been more important to support our musicians out there. try out a few of these.